Force Quitting locked up Apps

In this lesson for macOS Mojave, I look at how to force quit troublesome apps on the Mac.

When does an App need to be Force Quit
If you are using an app and it becomes unresponsive, this is the first sign that you may need to force quit it. How do you know if it is unresponsive? One sign is when you go to the menu bar in the app, and you can’t select a menu. Also, the cursor will change into a spinning rainbow. Another sign is when you move the cursor over the app icon in the dock, and again, it has the spinning rainbow. You can’t quit it, you can’t do anything with the app.

At this point, the app may be locked up. Usually, I will wait a minute or so though, as the app may be doing something in the background. You don’t want to force quit an app if you don’t have to, especially if you’ve made changes to a document in the app. When you force quit an app, it does not save any changes.

Force Quitting through the Apple Menu
If you need to force quit an app, go up to the Apple Menu Bar and select Force Quit under the Apple. A new window will open with all of your open apps. The one that is frozen will be highlighted in some cases. Just select the app in the list and then click on Force Quit.

Force Quitting through the Dock
You can also force quit an app from the dock. If an app is locked up, you just click and hold on the app icon in the Dock. You will see Force Quit. You can also hold down the Option key when you click on the app icon to get force quit.

See this Lesson Action
To see this lesson in action, take a look at the video above.